(From Wikipedia-edited for size)
Social realism is the term used
for work produced by painters, printmakers, photographers, writers and
filmmakers that aims to draw attention to the real socio-political conditions
of the working class as a means to critique the power structures behind these
conditions. While the movement's characteristics vary from nation to nation, it
almost always utilizes a form of descriptive or critical realism.] Taking its
roots from European Realism, Social Realism aims to reveal tensions between an
oppressive, hegemonic force and its victims.
The term is sometimes more
narrowly used for an art movement that flourished between the two World Wars as
a reaction to the hardships and problems suffered by common people after the
Great Crash. In order to make their art more accessible to a wider audience,
artists turned to realist portrayals of anonymous workers as well as
celebrities as heroic symbols of strength in the face of adversity. The goal of
the artists in doing so was political as they wished to expose the deteriorating
conditions of the poor and working classes and hold the existing governmental
and social systems accountable.
Social realism should not be
confused with socialist realism, the official Soviet art form that was
institutionalized by Joseph Stalin in 1934 and was later adopted by allied
Communist parties worldwide. It is also different from realism as it not only
presents conditions of the poor but does so by conveying the tensions between
two opposing forces, such as between farmers and their feudal lord. However,
sometimes the terms social realism and socialist realism are used
interchangeably.
With the onset of Abstract
Expressionism in the 1940s, Social Realism had gone out of fashion